RogerBW's Blog

Back to this this small quarterly boardgames convention in Watford.

I started as usual with Nicola Zealey's customised Wings of Glory, where we took late-war fighters in an observation scenario. Both balloons and fixed-wing aircraft were on the table, and would accrue observation points as the game progressed, unless shot down.

Or, as it turned out, getting "crew hit" special damage cards, which happened rather a lot (only five of the cards in a fairly thick deck of damage results, but three of them came up). We didn't get in a lot of fighting before it became apparent that our side couldn't win.

Some X-Wing next, by request from several people who hadn't played it before. Since all of them had played a fair bit of Wings of Glory, I didn't use the introductory scenario, but rather set up a "double basic set" 64-point balanced game with named characters:

Mauler Mithel / TIE Fighter
 Determination
"Winged Gundark" / TIE Fighter
Backstabber / TIE Fighter
Night Beast / TIE Fighter

vs

Luke Skywalker / X-Wing
 R2-D2
Wedge Antilles / X-Wing
 R5-D8

(All right, several of those cards are actually from expansion packs, but I deliberately picked ones with fairly simple abilities to show how the full game worked without going into the depths of complexity with ion cannon and cloaks and so on.)

The TIEs did what TIEs do best: concentrate on a single target.

Poor old Wedge was in trouble. And gone. Though this left the Imperials in a less than ideal position.

Luke swept in as the TIEs tried to work their way through the asteroids.

Everything devolved into the traditional chain of collisions.

But with several ships taking asteroid hits, weight of fire told, and even R2-D2 couldn't save the day. The players seemed happy, and I think this works as a fairly gentle introduction to the game for four players. Even if we didn't end up doing any barrel rolls.

A home-brew version of Cash 'n' Guns next, where I took joint second place in spite of never having played before. Quite fun, but slight; I'll play if it's on offer but I don't suppose I'll seek it out.

Finally, For Sale, a double auction game: first you bid for properties with your money, then you bid for money with your… properties…? It doesn't entirely make sense, but it was enjoyable and didn't outstay its welcome.

Thanks to Lawrence for organising things again. The next one will probably be on 22 August, but details will in any case be on Boardgamegeek.